The eager, happy trouble of the boy she had beguiled flushed out no more; nay, but he paled; earnest, sad, indomitable, the man demanded of her answering integrity. Uncomprehended, the mystery of pain in embodied power stood confronting the magic of the sea, and she quailed.
'Agonistes, Agonistes!' she panted, 'now I find your name: it is Agonistes!'
But while he did not answer, her old light came to her for reading the tense inquiry of his eyes. Did they demand acknowledgment of her defeat and his supremacy? No, she would not own that; he should not know.
'And have you feared to keep what you got of the sea? And have you flung it away, as I counselled when last you beheld me?'
The strong, haggard face never altered for contest. He asked slowly:
'Was it a vision of Diadyomene that rose up to the waves through the shadow of a fisher's boat?'
With an effort she set her eyes at his defiantly.
'It was not I. I? For what cause?'
'He called you.'
'I come for no man's call.'